Moscow University Bulletin. Series 12. Political Science. 2023. 1.

The problem of the application of punishment to realization political goals in international relations is considered. The author characterizes the social institution of punishment, indicates its place and role in the structure of social relations. The political and legal component of punishment is analyzed in the context of unilateral sanctions of some sovereign states against others. The main forms and content of the influence of political goals on the institution of international legal sanctionspunishments are determined. The author’s vision of such specific phenomena as “self-punishment” and “political engagement” is substantiated. An algorithm for identifying the political bias of decisions on the imposition of international legal penalties, as well as possible ways to develop an adequate response to them from the “punished” subjects (target states) is formulated. The empirical base of the study includes materials on the application of punishments by individual and collective subjects of international relations against the Russian Federation, including the geopolitical consequences of the relevant sanctions decisions.

The article presents the results of applied political research, the purpose of which is to determine the scale, mobilization potential, social base, and digital communication technologies of protest-oriented information flow in the Russian segment of social media on the eve of the Single Voting Day of 2021. The cognitive mapping implemented in the study made it possible to identify the meaningful characteristics of the information flow. The social media analysis made it possible to determine the dynamic and structural characteristics of the information flow, the gender and age specifics of the users involved in it, as well as quantitative characteristics of the activity of key communities forming protest information flows. The method of social
graphs revealed the structure of interaction between the opposition and protest communities of Telegram in 2021. The event analysis carried out during the study made it possible to fix the key peaks of growth in the dynamics of user activity around protest events and discourses. On this basis, it was possible to identify the triggers used to involve users in protest information flows (elections, law enforcement agencies, vaccination, socio-economic problems), typologize the communities forming the protest information flow (protest aggregator communities, news aggregator communities, local analytics communities), and model of mass protest mobilization (primary trigger — secondary trigger — offline protest).

Very approximate information is available about the electoral preferences of the residents of Donbass within the framework of the Russian political and legal field. The article considers the issue of establishing the exact results of the will of the voters of the L-DPR, who were citizens of the Russian Federation, in the elections to the State Duma in 2021. Conclusions about the electoral preferences of residents of the L-DPR are made on the basis of the difference in the results of voting on the proportional and majority components of the electoral system of the Russian Federation, within which residents of Donbass could not vote for majority candidates. The results of remote electronic voting (REV), “exit” voting at the polling stations of the Rostov region and post-election polling are analyzed.
It is established that at least 200 thousand L-DPR voters voted in these elections. The results of the REV and “exit” voting differed somewhat. The greatest support was enjoyed by: “United Russia” (the “exit” vote of the DPR — 81 %, the LPR — 83 %, the REV — 88 %) and the LDPR (up to 10 % on the “exit” vote). The electoral culture of Donbass had features of “periphery” in relation to the whole of the Russian Federation: many residents are poorly versed in the intricacies of Russian politics, vote for patriotic forces, identify support for the Russian Federation and its leadership.
According to the results of surveys, more than 60 % of residents of the L-DPR ethnically identify themselves as Russians. Depending on the wording of the questions, from 65 % to 80 % of respondents called joining the Russian Federation a priority vector of integration of the region. During the period of the existence of the L-DPR, the prevailing pro-Russian sentiments in this territory have only intensified.

The article considers the prerequisites and problems of the evolution of Russian-Ukrainian relations in the period from 2014 to 2022. Geopolitical causes of the reunification of Crimea with the Russian Federation in 2014, as well as the consequences of the mentioned event have been analyzed. The results of negotiations for settlement of the conflict in Ukraine within the framework of the Normandy format have been studied. It is emphasized that in the result of the failure to implement the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements the process of resolving the conflict in the South-East of Ukraine has reached a dead end. Moreover, the Ukrainian side, with the support of the states of the socalled collective West, has initiated the preparations to finish the conflict under consideration by military means. In addition, the transformation of the doctrinal documents that determined the Russian-Ukrainian relations has been analyzed. The active influence of the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on the foreign policy of Ukraine during the period under consideration is noted. The military and technical, reconnaissance, financial and diplomatic support provided to Ukraine by Western states, as well as the politics of Ukraine for implementation of the ideology of Ukrainian nationalism and Russophobia into society have been studied as the factors of transformation of Russian-Ukrainian relations, as well as the prerequisites for the Special Military Operation initiated by the Russian Federation on February 24, 2022.

This article focuses on the stages of development of the Eastern Partnership project, the European Union (EU) foreign policy strategy towards it and the role of Russia as a political competitor of the EU in the region. With the help of analyzing key documents that define the goals and objectives of the Eastern Partnership from the moment of its creation up to today, the features of the project initiative’s way of development and the degree of the EU’s involvement into political and economic processes of the Partnership states are pointed out. The research allows to clarify and evaluate the political background for the changes in the EU strategy towards the Partnership states and the principal incentives for the widening of cooperation within its framework. The main conclusion of the research is that the Eastern Partnership has grown in importance for the EU over time, especially since 2014, when the EU started to view Eastern Europe as one of the principal areas of influence and Russia as a direct competitor. The project has begun to include more and more spheres of political and economic cooperation, placing an emphasis on energy security, economic aid, and the development of civil society via European “soft power”.

For the most part, electoral and party research today is centered on the behavior of voters in two or four major clusters that can be conventionally placed on a scale from left to right. On the same scale, there are smaller groups whose value of separation is often questioned. This paper focuses on one of these groups: we consider a segment of voters united on the basis of their support for right-wing liberal parties and try to identify the most significant determinants of their choice. Based on the existing concepts of voting and data from the European Social Survey, 2016–2018, we generalize possible predictors – party and political selfidentification, ideological stances, social setting and material status – up to three theories (‘ideological core’, ‘defectors’ and ‘winners’), and test their plausibility using regression tools. Modeling results show that for a number of parameters the separation of new subgroup is justified. First, we reject the hypothesis of a strategic non-voting for right-liberals (on the contrary, respondents often “strategically” vote for them rather than for some personally closer party). Second, we find similar characteristics of the voter profile in different European countries; in particular, people who share the values of non-interference (associated with opposition to income redistribution and cultural restrictions) are more inclined to electorally back the liberal right. On the other hand, for a complete picture it is not enough to indicate ideological or cleavage preferences: the fact of voting is strongly influenced by person’s socio-economic background, confirming the earlier remarks about certain “privileges” in this electoral segment.

The article analyzes the configuration, ideology, program and electorate of two national-populist parties in Poland — “Kukiz’15” and “KORWiN”, which showed significant results in the 2015 and 2019 elections and thereby demonstrated society has a demand for change. Further, the possible reasons for the populist success are considered in terms of the increase in the amount of demand because of the socioeconomic situation, the problem of migration and the high volatility of the party system. And from the point of view of increasing the quality of the proposal the article deals with the development of communication channels “party — voter”, the use of the Internet in electoral campaigns and adaptation to the policies pursued by the ruling party “Law and Justice” (Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc). The 2015 Polish parliamentary elections were characterized by the successful debut of the right-wing populist and anarchist “Kukiz’15”. Nearly a quarter of her voters in 2015 voted for the left-wing populist “Palikot Movement” in 2011, when it debuted in elections and entered parliament. However, ideologically these are diametrically opposite forces. They are related only by aggressive and irreconcilable discourse and, of course, populism. Thus, the success of these parties did not come so much from the ideologies and programs they proposed, but from the fact that in recent years the Polish voter is consciously ready to choose any non-systemic radical alternative protest force, which is expected to be populists, as opposed to the established party establishment.